The present invention relates to a Telecommunications Environment Management Operating System (TEMOS). TEMOS is a system and method for achieving and sustaining optimal financial, operational and technical performance in the field of telecommunications.
TEMOS includes standards and best practices, processes and measures for effectively managing enterprise financial, operational and technical objectives. Standards and best practices addressing the management of seven core areas of focus form the foundation of telecommunication environment management and are represented in a Telecom Environment Management Model (TEMM). Resource management, process management, technical management, asset management, project management, relationship management and financial management are seven illustrated core areas of focus within TEMOS. TEMOS implements standards and best practices; measures performance against market leaders, market peers, and internal benchmarks; and establishes action plans to meet desired objectives. In an illustrated embodiment, enterprise performance measurements are made using a scoring system that quantifies performance against a scale illustrating the degree of optimal performance attained across all telecom environment management practices.
An illustrated embodiment of the present disclosure relates to telecommunications environment management business processes, specifically a system and method for achieving and maintaining optimal financial, operational and technical performance in the field of telecommunications. Telecom applications and services continue to grow in necessity and prevalence as technology and organizational communications needs evolve. Spending for these telecommunication services will grow in conjunction with increased service penetration. Increases in spending focuses the need for organizations to increase financial and operational management control over the performance and cost of telecommunication services.
The need for control has led organizations to establish and deploy internal key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor and adjust the performance of telecom cost against services. KPIs have been created to track a multitude of management points, such as:                Telecom cost per employee        Telecom cost against revenue        Telecom cost against operating expenses        Telecom cost per location        Telecom cost per business unit        Percentage of new contract rate increase/decrease against previous contracts        
These KPIs, as well as other KPIs unique to each organization, create and support a self-contained management environment allowing cost trend analysis and comparative analysis against past cost performance projections. A challenge for organizations is managing the cost of telecommunication services and service delivery proactively. This is particularly true when considering the scope of budget planning and performance evaluation activities. Developing and monitoring self-contained KPIs provides some measure of budget performance response. However, KPIs measured against themselves, not against benchmarks of excellence, leave room for performance interpretation open for each organization. The lack of KPI measurement against standards and current market benchmark metrics leaves a management void. A distinct market need exists for a suite of benchmark standards that enable organizations to migrate telecommunication management practices from subjective self-review to an objective analysis. The Telecom Environment Management Operating System (TEMOS) of the present disclosure fills this need and provides customers with a standards tool for implementing and benchmarking telecom environment management metrics.
One financial pressure felt by telecom professionals is to optimize and reduce the cost of telecom. This pressure increases in proportion to increased consumption. Simple price point reductions are no longer adequate for achieving cost reduction demands.
Cost reduction demands feed the second dominant telecom pressure—resource limitations. Financial, operational and technical telecom professionals have declined over time. More is asked of professionals in today's telecom environment and the complexities of functional and management activities have increased over time as technology and flexibility has proliferated in the telecom market. In direct relation to financial management demands, telecom professionals are required to become more skilled in achieving established financial objectives. The absence of proper skills and/or adequate resources does not, however, alleviate financial pressures or expectations. The net result is pain and frustration experienced by telecom professionals as they strive to meet organizational demands with limited resources.
The demand for financial optimization is an ever-present driver even in cases in which financial objectives for previous periods have been met. This introduces another challenge for telecom professionals and organizations alike, as expectations driven purely by need that are not balanced against attainable industry benchmarks create a situation where financial needs may be unrealistic or unachievable while maintaining the same quantity of services and technology.
The industry as a whole lacks definitive standards for environment management and benchmarks for measuring success toward achieving financial and operational excellence. Internal objectives not measured against best practices and industry benchmarks are myopic in scope and incomplete against true measures of achievement.
TEMOS delivers tools, standards and best practices, and performance services focused on driving optimal performance in enterprise telecom environments. TEMOS provides an online portal application that aggregates information and resources needed for enterprises to attain optimal performance across financial, operational and technical objectives. A Metrics Manager and Recommendation Generator are hardware/software modules used to deliver TEMOS. TEMOS also includes a data collector that captures performance metrics that measures predictive and process performance based on enterprise user inputs. Performance measurements are dynamic across three strata: internal performance, market peer performance and market excellence performance as discussed below.
Internal performance is the measurement of current state predictive performance and process performance metrics. Predictive performance measurements illustratively include Skills Assessments and Environment Assessments. Each measurement captures data responses from individuals functioning within a telecom environment, measures responses against standards and best practices and scores the responses. Scored responses are aggregated into an overall score for individual Skills Assessment topics or the Environment Assessment evaluation. Aggregate scores are measured against a probability scale which provides an indication of the probability of optimal performance by an organization within the telecom environment. Successive Skills Assessments and Environment Assessments are measured similarly and compared against previous scores.
The practice of measuring predictive performance on a continuum allows for progress or regress to be identified and quantified. Process performance metrics are measured in terms of standards and best practices process cycle time, accuracy and reliability. Each process within TEMM methodology is designed to maximize process performance results. Cycle time is measured in terms of individual effort exerted to complete a process and elapsed time, as these measures have a direct bearing on cost of environment management practices and financial value afforded the processes. Accuracy and reliability of process performance are measured to provide a complete representation of the value of optimal performance in financial terms. Processes with optimal cycle time and low reliability and accuracy are of less financial value than processes with optimal cycle time and high reliability and accuracy. The practice of measuring process performance on a continuum allows for progress or regress to be identified and quantified.
Market peer performance measurements evaluate individual predictive performance and process performance against market peers with similar demographics. The data collector within TEMOS indexes predictive performance and process performance results against certain enterprise demographics, including but not limited to:                Industry Segment        Quantity of Locations        Enterprise Sales Revenue        Enterprise Employee Count        Enterprise Workforce Profile (Office/Field)        Monthly & Annual Telecom Spend (Voice, Data, Wireless)        Geographic Profile (State, Country)        Service Profile (Voice, Data, Wireless)        
Market excellence performance in TEMOS is an individual predictive measure, an environment predictive measure or a process performance measure scoring 90% or greater against AOTMP's standardized performance scale.
According to an illustrated embodiment of the present disclosure, a method of predicting a probability of optimal performance within a telecommunications environment for an organization comprises measuring a predictive performance by assessing skills of telecom personnel within an organization and assessing a telecom environment of the organization; comparing the skills assessments and the environment assessments to standards and best practices within the telecommunications industry; generating scores for the skills assessments and the environment assessments based on the comparing step; aggregating scores from the skills assessments and environment assessments to provide an overall score; and determining a probability of optimal performance in a telecommunications environment for the organization based on the overall score.
In an illustrated embodiment, the environment assessments include assessments in the areas of resource management, process management, technical management, asset management, project management, relationship management, and/or financial management. Illustratively, the skills assessments are predictive indicators that measure the probability that telecom personnel have the skills and knowledge required to achieve optimal performance and the environment assessments are predictive indicators that measure the probability that processes within the organization are present to support telecom personnel in their efforts to achieve optimal performance.
According to another illustrated embodiment of the present disclosure, a system is provided for recommending improvements to an organization's telecommunication environment to a computing device via a communication network. The system includes a computer server operably connected to the computing device through the communication network, a memory accessible by the computer server, and a database stored in the memory. The database includes a plurality of recommendations for telecommunication environment improvements made by analysts and a plurality of telecommunication environment factors considered by the analysts when making the recommendations. The system also includes a recommendation generator software module stored in the memory and executable by the computer server, the recommendation generator module being operable to automatically receive a plurality of telecommunication environment factors from an organization via the computing device; automatically store the plurality of factors received from the organization in the memory; automatically compare the stored factors received from the organization to the stored factors and recommendations in the database; automatically generate at least one recommendation for an improvement to the organization's telecommunication environment based on the comparison; and automatically transmit the at least one recommendation from the computer server to the computing device via the communication network.
In an illustrated embodiment, the recommendation generator module is further operable to automatically identify factors stored in the database that establish conditions determining when a recommendation was made by the analysts; automatically determine a Boolean logic relationship between the identified factors and the recommendation; automatically analyze the organization's data received from the computing device with the computer server to determine the telecommunication environment factors that are present; and automatically apply the Boolean logic to the organization's factors received from the computing device to determine the at least one recommendation.
Also in an illustrated embodiment, the recommendation generator software module further uses a Bayesian analysis of the factors to determine when a recommendation is made. Illustratively, the recommendation generator software module is further operable to automatically calculate a probability that a particular recommendation should be included as part of an overall recommendation of improvements to the organization's telecommunication environment, and automatically send the probability to the computing device along with the recommendation for display on a display of the computing device. The recommendation generator software module is further operable to automatically receive an input from the computing device accepting the particular recommendation and to automatically add an accepted recommendation to the database stored in the memory upon receiving the input from the computing device accepting the particular recommendation.
According to yet another illustrated embodiment of the present disclosure, a method of providing a probability of optimal performance within a telecommunication environment for an organization using data received from an organization's computing device over a communication network includes providing a computer server operably coupled to the computing device through the communication network; providing a memory accessible by the computer server; and storing data related to telecommunications industry standards and best practices in a first database in the memory. The method also includes automatically generating and sending environment assessments related to the organization's telecom environment from the computer server to the computing device via the computer network; automatically receiving data from the computing device in response to the environment assessments; automatically storing the received data related to the environment assessments in a second database linked to the organization; automatically comparing the environment assessment data received from the organization and stored in the second database to the telecommunication industry standards and best practices stored in the first database; and automatically determining with the computer server a probability of optimal performance in the telecommunication environment for the organization based on the comparing step.
In an illustrated embodiment, the step of automatically determining a probability of optimal performance includes automatically calculating scores for a plurality of environment assessments based on the comparing step; automatically aggregating scores from the plurality of environmental assessments to provide an overall score; and automatically determining a probability of optimal performance in the telecommunication environment for the organization based on the overall score.
Additional features of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments exemplifying the best mode of carrying out the invention as presently perceived.